


A Telvanni in the Court of the Jarl

by blindinkpoet



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Bisexual Female Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Multi, No Dovahkiin | Dragonborn, Semi-Canon Compliant, will add more as they come up - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24337150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindinkpoet/pseuds/blindinkpoet
Summary: Tavyanda Mensen is sent to Skyrim by her master in an attempt to get rid of her. Shenanigans ensue when she gets captured by the same Imperial convoy that transports the Dragonborn.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	A Telvanni in the Court of the Jarl

In retrospect, having thought long and hard about it, sound of mind and in full possession of her faculties, both physical and mystical, and with a good deal of time between her and the events in question, Tavyanda Mensen, who wouldn’t mind being called Tavy by friends if she had them, at the time an apprentice to Master Teriandus of the Great House Telvanni, would blame the chain of events that lead to her being laid on the chopping block, almost burnt to a crisp by a rampaging dragon and being dragged into the middle of the mess that was Skyrim in the year 201 of the 4th Era… on a one-night stand.

It was a simple, but logical conclusion if you followed the chain. And obviously not at all her fault. How was she supposed to know the man, a Breton of no small appeal, was actually a Thalmor honeypot looking for blackmail material? It would’ve been an absolutely preposterous thought at the time, what with the Bretons being (nominally, as far as she was aware) part of the Empire. And of course, he hadn’t actually gotten away with it. The spells and safety measures she put in place around her workshop warned her with more than enough time to freeze him in place before he got away with her journals and notes. The gall of the man… it hadn’t even been good sex.

Alas, her Master hadn’t seen it that way. Not even close, in fact. She was almost certain at some point in the argument one of the veins in his forehead had popped. The fact that she had dared to talk back to him probably hadn’t helped her case in his eyes, (how dared a simple apprentice try to defend herself? Preposterous.) And thus she had been expelled.

Not officially, of course. Being on the lower end of the Telvanni totempole, her master couldn’t afford the political backblow that would be expelling his only apprentice. That would be just asking for a knife in his back. Or worse. These are the Telvanni we’re talking about. 

Instead, he’d have to get creative, eventually settling on the bane of every apprentice: chores.

In a way, Telvanni politicking may have saved her life, thought Tavyanda. If he sent her on impossible tasks, master Teriandus would get the reputation of an unreasonable mentor. No apprentice would want to work and learn from him. Advancing on the ranks of the House would be all the harder for him. So he sent her on missions just dangerous enough that she had to give it her all to survive, but not outright lethal if she played her cards right.

That was, of course, until dragons showed up and started burninating the countryside. She could almost imagine her master jumping up and down in excitement at the thought. Sent her to find out if the rumours were true and research deeply. And hey, if a dragon ended up killing her… well. He’d prepared her the best he could, but clearly she hadn’t listened to his wise words of caution.

Getting into Skyrim would have been a simple matter if she’d been in Morrowind, all she’d had to do was cross the pass of Refugees’ Rest. But no… she’d had to have been in Cyrodiil at the time Teriandus had the brilliant idea. She hadn’t even had the energy to feel bad about the messenger that caught her fending off a group of goblins (how those people actually managed to know where the recipients of their letters were at any given point had been a proposed topic for her thesis at one point. She suspected Daedra involvement, but you never knew.) Tipping the messenger had been an automatic motion, just as the loud groaning at seeing the sender.

Heavy were the steps that led her to Bruma, and heavier still the ones that took her across the northern border of the Imperial Province, not helped at all by the brilliant idea of deciding to try to soldier on in the middle of the night like a thief or a smuggler. Eventually, she’d decided she couldn’t go on anymore and had decided to make a camp before continuing on.

Which of course made her the perfect target for some asshole to suddenly decide that hitting her in the back of the head was a perfectly normal way to start a conversation with someone in the middle of the night and everything had gone black.

In the end, it was the bumps on the road that woke her up again, her face hurting from where it had been leaning on the cart and it’s constant shakes. I hate carts… she thought, doing her best to straighten up and stretch with her hands bound before looking around.

Everything was grey. It seemed like something had scared off the colours of the world, but they’d left in such a hurry that only a pale shade remained behind. Around her, men and women in leather armour looked at each other in silent conversation, all looks and small movements in a code she couldn’t crack. Or want to, at least not with the headache that was threatening to break. Nords… not one of them knows how to treat a lady.

“Shut up back there!” shouted a guard from the cart behind hers. A guard in Legion armour.

“Shite…” she muttered, putting two and two together. The Nords on the carts? Rebel Stormcloaks. Had to be. Which meant they were being carted off to some shithole of a prison. If they were lucky. 

“Shite shite shite,” her words grew in speed, almost catching up to her thoughts.

“Calm down, girl,” muttered the blonde woman by her side. Nord, of course, but older than the others. At least judging by the valleys on her face, and the grey streaks on her braided hair. Tavyanda wasn’t an expert in those things. Blowing stuff up? Definitely her thing. Telling how old a human was? Find someone else. “You’ll walk out of here soon enough.”

“Yeah, because the Imperials are known for letting prisoners go,” she replied with a bit more bite than she intended. Had that been rude? Now she wouldn’t want to continue talking and the rest of the ride would be unbearably uncomfortable. Oh, Azura, what if they were cellmates? That may be too much… No, what if they weren’t cellmates because they were going to get beheaded?

“You’re thinking too much, too loudly” chuckled the nord, drawing weird looks from the other passengers.

“Lyddil, you should leave her alone,” said one of them, a redhead guy with only a shadow of a beard. He sounded almost admonishing.

“Shut up, Fafnar. I’ll spend my last hours talking to whomever I please,” she barked back, making the man lean back. Content, she turned back to the dunmer. “What’s your name, girl?”

“… Tavyanda. Tavyanda Mensen, of the Great House Telvanni.” If you had to introduce yourself, you had to give the whole title. It was only proper.

“Well, Tavyanda-Tavyanda Mensen,” the no- Lyddil, chuckled again. The lines around her mouth looked sharper when she did that. “Welcome to the beautiful land of Skyrim.”

“I would have gone with cold,” replied the dunmer, unable to keep the retort from flying off her tongue. She shrunk on her seat, her already small frame a lot smaller in an effort to fight against the biting wind.

Lyddil laughed loudly, making the Legionnaire driving their cart look back for a short moment. Their eyes returned to the road in short time, however.

“Good to know not all Imperials have a stick up their arse,” whispered Lyddil into Tavyanda’s ear in a way that made the dunmer’s hair stand. The other woman must have noticed, because she leaned back chuckling to herself as the cart crossed under a stone arc. Tavy hadn’t even realised they were nearing a town, and looked around, eyes darting between wooden walls, straw roofs and stone fortifications.

And that’s when she saw the Thalmor.


End file.
